“But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.” – Daniel 10:13

The section in bold is the specific area of interest we are going to focus on. It was during my research into the different ranks of angels that I first really paid attention to the phrase. I decided to use the Strong’s to look up the word translated as “chief”, and here is what I found:

Read More About Angels & Demons In My Book

The next thing I checked to see was how it was used in other parts of the Bible, and almost without fail, it was used to designate a period of time and not necessarily a position in rank.

First (Exodus 34:1)

Before (Numbers 6:12)

Eldest (2 Chronicles 22:1)

There were a total of 30 uses of the word, but the only times it was translated as chief was in Daniel 10:13 and 1 Chronicles 18:17. This made me ask the question, “are some angels older than others?”

The Creation of Angels

The Bible says quite a bit about angels, but it doesn’t tell us when or how they came to be. According to Proverbs 8:23 tells us that wisdom was set up from everlasting (before the earth) and we know that according to Job 38:7 that the sons of God (angels) shouted for joy when the earth was created.

A POSSIBLE timeline is that angels were created after wisdom, but before the earth. What we don’t know is how angels were created, why angels were created, and if they were all created at the same time.